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Very few. Mostly, it was these southern planters have an unfair economic advantage and they're bringing African savages into the country. Slave owners at least wanted to protect their property. Non-slave owners were either apathetic or just wanted a simple way to get rid of the blacks. There's documents of white abolitionists with decent intentions but their prevelance in society is deeply exaggerated. It was met with the concern we have of a mosquito eradication program today. Nobody cares about the mosquitos. It's all about how does this affect everything else.

Very few. Mostly, it was these southern planters have an unfair economic advantage and they're bringing African savages into the country. Slave owners at least wanted to protect their property. Non-slave owners were either apathetic or just wanted a simple way to get rid of the blacks. There's documents of white abolitionists with decent intentions but their prevelance in society is deeply exaggerated. It was met with the concern we have of a mosquito eradication program today. Nobody cares about the mosquitos. It's all about how does this affect everything else.

Abolition was a huge grassroots movement in the north, extensively documented

To throw your cynicism even more for a loop it was also an extremely religious movement

If I were to hold your view on religion I might say Christianity ended slavery in N America

Why was it a mistake? Lee lead a treasonous army that attacked and killed thousands of members of the US military, that's not typically something we memorialize here.

I can see that it's still a very contentious issue in a country that isn't mine and I don't want to disrespect the feelings of Americans. Everyone can see that the Civil War was a huge tragedy; huge partly because the country was so evenly divided, and at the time Lee was a military hero to many Americans. The Civil War is now part of American history, as in fact is the statue itself. How long has it been standing there without exciting comment? Why not leave historical memorials in place, even if they commemorate things or people that are controvertial by modern standards of thinking? Another way to show disdain for Robert E. Lee would be to put a new, dated, plaque under the statue explaining when the statue was put up and how his cause is now largely discredited, but please leave your historical artifacts in place.
When a dictator is overthrown, it's very common that his statues are destroyed in the excitement of victory, but that doesn't apply in this case and imo no country should go around smashing up the monuments it doesn't approve of.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chula Vista

Let's remember that the Civil War, at its core, was about those southern states wanting to keep their slaves (to stay very rich) and ignoring the basic tenants of the United States Constitution:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

^ Strictly speaking, the Civil War was about Federal vs State control; the whole issue of slavery was just an add on from Lincoln after they had already been fighting for years:-

Quote:

While not all Southerners saw themselves as fighting to preserve slavery, most of the officers and over a third of the rank and file in Lee's army had close family ties to slavery. To Northerners, in contrast, the motivation was primarily to preserve the Union, not to abolish slavery. Abraham Lincoln consistently made preserving the Union the central goal of the war, though he increasingly saw slavery as a crucial issue and made ending it an additional goal.

__________________Did you ever hear of having more than you wanted? So that you couldn’t want anything else and then started looking for something else to want? It seems like we’re always searching for something to satisfy us, and never finding it. - Susan Eloise Hinton, 1967

Why not leave historical memorials in place, even if they commemorate things or people that are controvertial by modern standards of thinking? Another way to show disdain for Robert E. Lee would be to put a new, dated, plaque under the statue explaining when the statue was put up and how his cause is now largely discredited, but please leave your historical artifacts in place.
When a dictator is overthrown, it's very common that his statues are destroyed in the excitement of victory, but that doesn't apply in this case and imo no country should go around smashing up the monuments it doesn't approve of.

I actually think it's a lot more similar to the dictator analogy than you realize tbh. Lee is essentially a leader of a foreign country that laid stake on US soil.

Abolition was a huge grassroots movement in the north, extensively documented

To throw your cynicism even more for a loop it was also an extremely religious movement

If I were to hold your view on religion I might say Christianity ended slavery in N America

The ONLY abolitionists were fringe Christians who actually believed in the New Testament. This idea that the north was morally superior to the south is just bull**** revisionism to reinforce patriotism with the dishonest narrative that the good guys won and America fights for freedom. The only issues at play were money and greed. The north was industrialized and the south used blacks as agricultural machinery. The north didn't give a **** about blacks they just wanted to extend their economic advantage.